Backers hope voters give bullet train a shot

Prop. 1A is seen as key to the state's future. But foes say projected costs and travel times are way too low.

SACRAMENTO — For a quarter century it has been a California dream on one drafting board or another -- a bullet train system so novel, environmentally friendly and fleet that it could reshape transportation in the car-crazy Golden State.

Now, state voters will be asked Nov. 4 to provide some locomotion by approving nearly $10 billion as a down payment toward the ultimate vision of an 800-mile high-speed rail network.

Promoters of Proposition 1A boast that the $45-billion project, featuring sleek trains reaching 220 mph, would be the nation's most ambitious public works effort since completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.

Foes say it would be a fiscal black hole that wouldn't deliver as promised.

With gas prices high, highways congested and airports jammed, it would seem the best of times for a bullet train.

But to some it seems the worst, with Wall Street in meltdown, California facing a perpetual budget deficit and the lurking specter of last month's horrific Metrolink commuter rail accident.

Past surveys have found that as many as two of three California residents support a bullet train. A poll in July found 56% support for financing the project this year.

But that was before the big problems hit.

"After all the crashes -- the train crash and the market crash -- supporters may have a lot more trouble than they anticipated," said Richard Tolmach, president of the nonprofit California Rail Foundation, a Proposition 1A foe.

California has been down these rails before with nothing to show for it.

In the late 1970s, high-speed rail was a gleam in the eye of then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Coastal denizens in the early '80s shot down a bullet train from L.A. to San Diego. Hopes for an L.A.-to-Las Vegas high-speed line have languished for years.

Elsewhere, it's been a different story. Germany, Spain, Italy and France all have high-speed rail systems. Japan's Shinkansen bullet train started rolling way back in 1964.

California's most serious attempt began in 1994 with the advent of a state commission to study the idea of linking Northern and Southern California. That spawned the California High-Speed Rail Authority in 1996.

Over the last dozen years the authority has spent $60 million planning the project. But attempts to fund construction have been stymied by politics and economic reality, with bond measures yanked by lawmakers from the ballot in 2004 and 2006.

This year, promoters concluded, it was now or never.

They are pulling out the stops to promote it, suggesting that high-speed rail will change the very face of the state -- getting folks out of their cars, fanning a more rail-oriented style of denser development.

The ballot measure would raise construction money by authorizing the sale of $9.95 billion in bonds. The borrowing would be repaid over 30 years, at a cost of $647 million a year to state coffers.

Most of that money would help finance the $33-billion first phase of the high-speed rail line, linking the Bay Area to L.A. and Orange County. It would be financed roughly a third each by the state, federal government and private sector, with construction to begin in 2011 and trains rolling by 2020.

Subsequent phases -- paid off by what promoters predict will be at least $1 billion in annual ticket sales profits -- would reach San Diego, Sacramento and Oakland.

As envisioned by the train's advocates, a trip from San Francisco to Union Station in Los Angeles would cost $55 and take little more than 2 1/2 hours. Bakersfield to downtown L.A. would take just 54 minutes.

"Fresno could become a bedroom community of Silicon Valley," said Quentin Kopp, the rail authority's chairman.

Backers say that not building the train system would further overburden a state already outstripping its airports and highways. California's population is expected to rise 30% and eclipse 50 million by 2030.

"We're behind an 8-ball," said Elizabeth Deakin, a UC Berkeley city and regional planning professor. "We're going to have a big slug of new people, and we need the transportation infrastructure to accommodate them."

Backers said the rail line would be a boon for both the present and future. As many as 160,000 construction jobs would help fuel an anemic current-day economy, they say, and 400,000 more would be created once the system was running.

Metrolink-type collisions wouldn't be an issue, they say, because the train would run on tracks separate from freight lines. Bridges and other grade separations would keep the rails away from cars.

The electric-powered trains would slash greenhouse gas emissions by 6.3 million tons a year, saving 12 million barrels of oil a year, proponents say.

Those numbers have lured the support of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, and the promise of an economic boost has lured support from the chambers of commerce in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno and other cities along the route.